By KEITH GRANT
Election time frequently proves to be a good occasion for schools to teach their students the electoral process. Last week's historic presidential contest, though, gave educators a little more than they bargained for.
"Well, if you believe every cloud has a silver lining, then I guess here's a chance where we can impress upon children that every vote is important," Ronald Friedman, Superintendent of Schools, said. The 2000 Election, he said, has become a unique "teachable moment" for the schools.
"You always want youngsters to see democracy in action. It's a great learning tool for our children."
Lydia Parris, principal of Lindell School, said America's 213-year-old electoral system is something that is taught annually at every grade level, kindergarten through fifth. But current chaotic events have thrown a bit of a wrench into their usual planning.
"Every year, we plan our student-government elections around the election. So we were already teaching the process, originally," she said. "But now we don't really know where to go with it. It's hard to do advance planning on the subject, right now."
Teachers at the school, Ms. Parris said, have found the situation coming up for discussion quite a bit in most classrooms, especially in the third through fifth grades. The students, she says, are definitely aware that what is happening is something historic.
"Absolutely, there is no question in their mind about it," she said. "They probably pick up on a lot of what's going on at home. And if their parents are talking about it, they know that it's something special that's going on."
A parent of two children, one in Lido Elementary and the other in the middle school, said she finds both kids coming home from school talking about the same thing. "They've both been talking about it every day when they get home," she said. "They're really into it."
Ms. Parris said that some students, though, do express concerns about what's going to happen as the events drag further into November. But at the same time, they remain fascinated by it.
"I'm sure these kids know more now about the Electoral College than ever before," Ms. Parris said. "It's an excellent lesson, not only for the children, but for everyone, that everyone's vote counts. I don't think what's happening is something that's ever even been a 'what if?'"
At Long Beach Middle School, teachers have been talking at length about the election process. According to Joyce Dileo, social studies chairperson, the school's eighth graders typically spend the first quarter of the school year studying the Constitution and were beginning work on the electoral system.
"I know in my classes, the students are responding well to it," she said. "They have conversations such as 'What if we don't have a president by January?' But mostly they're curious."
Living through such a lesson is clearly beneficial to the students, Ms. Dileo said. "Anytime you can experience something, it's better than reading it off of a page of a book. It gets much easier to comprehend. The students are discussing the system, [asking] should we keep it, should we change it. It makes it much more beneficial for them to learn."
Alhough the electoral process falls more into the eighth-grade curriculum, Ms. Dileo said the sixth- and seventh-grade classrooms are dealing with it just as much, and she has been finding a common reaction among all ages.
"A lot are concerned what if there is no president by January, but a lot are excited that 'Wow! This hasn't happened before,'" she said. "There's a lot of excitement about it. What we're telling them is that what is happening now is something their kids will learn about the way they're learning now about what happened when their parents were growing up."
For Dr. Friedman, following the tally on election night brought back memories of watching history happen in his own childhood.
"I'll never forget waking up and hearing that Kennedy had beaten Nixon," he said. "Going to bed, we didn't know yet. This was an even tighter race. These kids will remember this like we remembered that one, or like people remember where they were the day Kennedy was shot. They're events that define our times."
